The Rose Code

At BP, Commander Travis and an intelligence officer question Mab and Osla about Beth’s behavior. When Travis asks whether Beth ever violated the Official Secrets Act, they admit that she did once. Osla tries to defend Beth, but the officers cut her off and dismiss her and Mab.

Upon arriving at BP for her shift a few hours later, Beth is arrested by two men who force her into a car, then sedate her. On the way to Clockwell Sanitarium, one of the men, who was bribed, gives her an unsigned message threatening her with a lifetime in the sanitarium unless she reveals the location of the reports she took. Beth refuses to answer and swallows the key to Dilly’s safe.

Osla translates a series of increasingly panicked German messages during the invasion. At the end of her long shift, she learns that Mab is transferring to London. They part on unfriendly terms. Osla stays at BP through the end of the war, but it is never quite the same.